This paper starts its analytical endeavour by basically asking how management control can contribute to person's innovative behavior at the workplace. However, in doing so, the paper takes a hitherto rather unusual perspective. By defining innovative behavior as a kind of 'desired deviance', it relates to a 'dark side perspective' on management control. In particular, by introducing Merton's anomie theory, the paper explores under which conditions the multiple forms of control proposed by the objects-of-control framework are likely to produce desirable and undesirable deviant behaviors. The findings inter alia show how actual 'dysfunctionalities' of management control can create precisely the conditions for producing innovative behavior. However, at the same time, they demonstrate that same conditions can also lead to frustration and withdrawal and thus produce rather undesirable behavioral consequences. In this way, the paper calls for deeper elaboration of the dark side effects of management control.
In research on organizations, the institutional work perspective plays a pivotal role in elaborating on the various instances of agency that aim to create, maintain, and disrupt institutional orders. However, the particular effects of emotions on processes of institutional work have been rarely addressed so far. In this paper, we focus on the emotions as an ambivalent driver of institutional work. We do this by introducing Axel Honneth´s sociophilosophical approach on 'struggles for recognition'. In particular, we analyze how emotions trigger institutional work in terms of a person´s entry as well as non-entry into struggles for recognition. For this, we suggest an analytical framework which focuses on seductive as well as agonizing aspects of relations of mutual recognition. We give evidence to our approach by an exploration of autobiographical accounts of former employees of investment banks, published in the context of the global financial crisis.
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